Real Bride. Real Cool. Real Married!!!

Hey everyone! Remember our lovely Emily and Alex? Well they're officially hitched! Yup! 20 days and counting. Ems recently shared some swoon-worthy shots on her blog of the wedding DIY details as well as a couple of shots from the honeymoon and wedding itself!

One of the wood signs made by Alex

My BHLDN addiction turned useful.

From left, clockwise: Pennant flags by Em, their collaborative Save-the-Date, "Best Dog" ribbon with flower, mums, Steep Street Wedding Photo, vintage tablecloths, Steep Street dancing photo.

Congratulations you two! On being married and still being tan from Costa Rica!

OMG CUTE.

Meet the Baby : Princess Peach

We have wanted a pug for almost 2 years.
After seeing everyone lovin' their dogs while we were in Michigan, we decided it was time to get our very own. We searched for a pug in Nebraska and found a little 5 month old gal from Pug Partners in Nebraska. We filled out an application and they got back with us to schedule a home walk-through with the pup and her Foster Mom. The pug was so happy and she ran around like a wild lady at the house! We were in love.
After sleeping on it like the organization suggests, we were in pain without her. We were sure we wanted to care for that dog!

Yesterday her foster parents both brought her over to say goodbye and send her off into our home. I can't imagine how difficult being a foster parent would be to this little girl or any other precious animal! Heartbreaking, to say the least.

I am SO impressed with Pug Partners. They chose a great set of foster parents for our perfect little Peach before she came to live with us. She is the most well-behaved puppy we have ever seen!

We. Love. Her.
Borderline addicted. Ok, over the line.

Easy Canvas Prints - HiLLjO's Review on Daisy to Sunflower

Thank goodness it's Wednesday already; I'm stir-crazy!

I was recently contacted by Easy Canvas Prints to see if I would like to review their products and services in exchange for an 8"x10" canvas print of a photo from our wedding! I was so giddy that I ordered it almost immediately.
We received it yesterday when we got back from our Michigan trip for my Grandma's memorial service, so it was a nicely-timed "welcome home" package.

There are so many options you can choose on their easy-to-use site! You pick a size canvas, then a wrap thickness. Next, you upload your image and it will even show you if it's a good quality image to use. One of the final steps that I'm most excited to tell you about is the Border Options. I know, I know, how exciting can it be to choose what the area AROUND the canvas will look like? Well, exciting! You can pick plain ol' "mirror image" where your image repeats on the sides; "image wrap" where the image extends over the sides; or even "border color," which is amazing, and is also the option that I chose. I picked from ANY color I could have imagined with their color selection tool and ended up with the perfect shade to match our wedding blue.

It looks so nice I'm going to just get an easel-back stand for it and keep it un-framed. I want to show off that splash of color!
I was concerned 8"x10" wouldn't be very large but I didn't add any upgrades to it and I think it turned out to be perfect. The size is great for the area I plan to place it near.

Has anyone used this website before? How do you like your prints?! I love mine!!!

PS: Heather, if you're reading: I saw you "Like" Easy Canvas Prints on the bottom of their website! lol!

Newlywed Life on a Monday Off

Yesterday Shawn and I had the day off since we just returned from spending the weekend in Michigan for my gramma's memorial services. It was nice to see everyone but it was a downer knowing why we were all there together so soon after the wedding. My cousin Jaimie got engaged to a great guy named Scott who works on the Carferry in the engine room. Stay tuned for more on that story for sure!
With our Monday off, we made a decision to use a smidge of the "House Money" [that we're using to buy things like kitchen tools and laundry vents] and go to lunch out at El Aguila. For less than $40 we each got a nice meal that we ate off later for dinner, and a big Margarita to share the size of our heads.
Pretty soon into the drink a bee started to show interest in the sugar rim of the glass. He was neat and we took lots of pictures of him.



Soon after he showed up, we established a system: we would take some drinks, then we'd let him have the sugar on the glass. He would leave and we'd have some more sips. It was working magically until another one showed up. He was a little agressive and brought out some agressive behavior in Bee #1. One knocked the other into the glass and tried to drown him. We got him out, rinsed him with a drop of water and placed him on a napkin. He was magnificently drunk but he held it together enough to come around and dry his wings off by shaking his antennae ferociously! It was hilarious.

Shawn started to make them used to his presence by drinking anyway to finish it up.

By the time we got it taken care of completely there were 4 bees on the glass. The watiress said this always happens but no one has ever gotten stung! Including us, I guess!



My DIY Re-designed Wedding Dress

Back when we bought my dress, I found it in a store the good ol' fashioned way and ordered one in the size they... ahem, suggested. It was all-white, all plain and uninspired... at least in the HiLLjO-flavored department. It is made by Forever Yours Bridal style 49209. It's bridal ivory and has allover allencon lace. People say you shouldn't judge a dress on the hanger, but I am telling you: as soon as I saw it on the hanger I knew it was mine.

First I decided to replace the white lace-up ribbon/sash for the corset back with a thick royal blue ribbon tied in a bow with long tails.

Then I decided I wanted a yellow crinoline after choosing a white dress over a colored one like I had originally planned. The crinoline was no easy task, taking multiple attempts to complete, only ending in a husband-made hour-long-heat-set dye process.
To help the crinoline be seen better, I had the front walkway of the hem cut up in my dress in hi-lo hem fashion. It helped you to see my bare feet better, too!

The next thing I wanted was to incorporate some crochet and some bunnies onto the dress. We had bunny cake top, sock bunnies, moss bunnies, yada-bunny-yada... but I made some seriously cute doily-style crochet bunnies. One was for HiLLjO and one was for Shawnie and I think they accented the lace in the dress AMAZINGLY.

One las shot of the bouquet/its wrap/ring/lucky elephant bracelet with my dress as a backdrop and my hair flying characteristically wild.

All our wedding photos here from D. Pohlen

My favorite bouquet shots...

My favorite bouquet shots are the ones where the groom's face may or may not be seen while he is holding the bouquet. It's such a gorgeous contrast of feminity and masculinity, as well as showcasing all things similar between the styled groom and his beloved's bouquet...

From Dex Knows

From Ruffled Blog

Interestingly enough, although we don't have a photo like this of my bouquet, we have a great humorous version that fits us even better. I believe I recall telling Shawn, "Use the opportunity while I look at the Marriage Certificate to get a picture of you holding the bouquet while the photographer is looking. Bloghers love that."

He thought it was as funny as I did after it was heard coming out of my mouth instead of bouncing around the confines of my aloof-y, just-married head.

This comes in third:

All of our wedding images here by D. Pohlen



Aqua Wedding Love

I am so loving aqua right now...
If you have not seen my home office design on my other blog or on Pinterest, there is an update for you: aqua = color HiLLjO loves right now. I found this shot captured by Sarah Rhoads from Katherine and Craig's rainy April wedding. It was featured on Jacin's blog lovely little details and I wanted to share:

Have a lurvely day :o)

No, I'm not hiding/not in love with weddings anymore/done showing you our wedding!

I PROMISE!

This bunny is hiding. HiLLjO bunny is not.

We have just been really busy

• Moving into our new house.
• Designing the rooms in our house.
• Dealing with ninnies from our old apartment building.
• Working. As always.
• Seeking spiritual and astrological balance.
• Eating well once more.
• FINALLY joining Pinterest!!!

I will be back with all the wedding goodness I used to post 3 times a day! VERY SOON!!!
And also, there will be a BIG ANNOUNCEMENT coming once my home office is done being designed and set up!

Wedding Dress Shopping FAILS

Blast from the past post! This was originally at Weddzilla but I wanted to share it here!!!